Whose Guyana Is It? The Hard Questions a Compliant Press Won’t Ask

592𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣♦ 𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝♦ 𝘼𝙘𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮♦𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮

592 Guardian Editorial

Whose Guyana Is It? The Hard Questions a Compliant Press Won’t Ask

A 592 Guardian Editorial

There is a story being told about Guyana’s rise — one of diplomatic maturity, strategic partnerships, and South-South cooperation. It is a story of trade doubling, tripling, and now touching the billion-dollar mark with Brazil. It is a story of a small nation punching above its weight on the world stage.

But behind that story, there is another one. And it demands to be told.

The Numbers That Indict the Narrative

Let us start with cold, uncontested facts. Trade between Guyana and Brazil has grown from US$58 million in 2020 to US$1 billion in 2026. Brazil is Guyana’s fifth-largest import source and seventh-largest export market. The two countries share a land border. Infrastructure connecting them — the Linden-Lethem Road, the Lethem airport upgrade, a proposed deep-water port — is actively being developed by both governments.

By every rational economic metric, Brazil is Guyana’s most consequential continental partner.

So when Guyana’s government decided to model and build its national digital payments architecture, which neighbor did it turn to?

It turned to India. In November 2024, during Prime Minister Modi’s state visit to Georgetown, Guyana signed an MoU with India’s NPCI International Payments Ltd specifically for deploying a UPI-like real-time payments system.

Ten MoUs in a single day. A diplomatic bonanza. Photo opportunities. Pageantry.

And Brazil — the country moving a billion dollars of goods and services with Guyana — was not in that room.

What Brazil Actually Built

This is not a case where both systems are equivalent and the choice is academic. Brazil’s Pix now reaches over 178 million users — approximately 91% of that country’s adult population — processing over 6 to 7 billion transactions monthly and moving more than USD $316 billion every single week. In 2024 alone, Pix processed 64 billion transactions — a 53% jump year over year — surpassing debit and credit card volumes by 80%. Between 2020 and 2024, Pix brought approximately 71 million previously unbanked Brazilians into the formal digital economy, representing one of the largest financial inclusion events in modern history.

And it is already moving regionally. Brazil’s central bank has been authorized to expand Pix internationally, and Brazilian tourists in Uruguay and Paraguay are already using their Pix digital wallets across the border. The system is currently active in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the United States, with Colombia and Panama next in line.

Guyana — Brazil’s direct neighbor and billion-dollar trade partner — does not appear on that list. That is not an accident of geography. That is a policy choice. And it demands an explanation.

India’s Trade With Guyana: The Real Figures

India’s total exports to Guyana in 2024 amounted to US$101 million. One hundred and one million dollars. Against Brazil’s one billion. The ratio is roughly ten to one in Brazil’s favor.

Yet it is India that gets the digital payments partnership. India that gets the MoUs — ten of them. India whose companies are proliferating across Guyana’s economic landscape, from pharmaceuticals to mining to financial infrastructure. India is already the dominant supplier of pharmaceuticals to Guyana, accounting for approximately 39% of all pharmaceutical imports — over $13 million in 2024 — making it the leading country of origin for medicines entering this country.

On what economic basis was India selected as the digital payments model for a country whose trade ecosystem is overwhelmingly South American? The government owes citizens a direct answer to that question — not diplomatic talking points, not press releases about historic bonds and shared values, but a concrete, evidence-based rationale.

Because if the rationale is not economic, we are entitled to ask what it actually is.

The Ekaa HRIM Question: A Window Into a Broken System

The Ekaa HRIM Earth Resources Management scandal is not merely a labor dispute. It is a window into something far more troubling about how Indian commercial interests have been permitted to operate in Guyana with insufficient scrutiny.

A mounting paper trail of regulatory complaints details systemic exploitation, forced confinement, and passport withholding against Indian laborers at the company’s Region 7 quarry — with complaints dating back as far as 2024. Workers allege unfair contracts, confiscation of passports, denial of wages, arbitrary salary cuts, and unsafe working conditions that caused severe injury to one worker and the death of another. The Ministry of Labor has confirmed it is examining the death of Indian national Sekhar Chhetri at the Batavia site on May 12, 2026, as well as an incident in which a worker lost four fingers.

The workers describe a calculated financial trap orchestrated between Ekaa HRIM and its preferred recruitment agency, Global Dynamic Talent Solutions, based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

Now ask the harder question: how did this company obtain the licensing, the permits, and the operational footprint to run a US$10 million quarrying operation in Guyana’s interior? Who approved it? Under what procurement and licensing framework? And were those approvals subjected to the same scrutiny that would be applied to, say, a Brazilian, Venezuelan, or American company seeking equivalent access?

The US State Department’s 2025 Investment Climate Statement on Guyana notes widespread concerns about procurement irregularities, disregard for rules governing public procurement, and reports of contract overpayments and breaches — all flagged in Guyana’s own Auditor General’s most recent report.

These are not unrelated threads. They are part of the same fabric.

The Diaspora Variable — And Why It Cannot Be a Policy Framework

Guyana is a multi-ethnic nation. That is its strength, its complexity, and its permanent political reality. The Indo-Guyanese community constitutes over 40% of the population, and India has explicitly framed its deepening engagement with Guyana around this diaspora connection.

There is nothing wrong with cultural ties. There is nothing wrong with trade relationships that leverage shared heritage and history. India has done this systematically and strategically across the Caribbean and South America, and one can acknowledge it as effective diplomacy.

But there is something profoundly wrong when a government of a plural, multi-ethnic nation allows diaspora affinity to distort sovereign economic decision-making. When the country with ten times your trade volume gets bypassed in favor of one that shares an ethnic connection with the ruling political base, that is not diplomacy. That is ethnic patronage operating through the mechanisms of state.

It is precisely the kind of politics that has stunted Guyana’s development for generations.

The Regional Integration Contradiction

The government speaks eloquently about South American integration. Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud invokes Guyana as a “gateway between South America and the Caribbean.” Infrastructure corridors to Brazil are hailed as transformative. The Linden-Lethem Road is a priority.

But you cannot build a road to Brazil and then refuse to build a payments rail to Brazil. You cannot describe Brazil as a “fundamental” partner for regional integration while simultaneously constructing your national financial infrastructure facing east toward Asia. These positions are in direct contradiction.

Integration is not rhetoric. It is architecture — physical, institutional, and financial. The digital payments choice was an architectural decision, and it pointed in exactly the wrong direction.

The Questions That Demand Answers

This editorial will be specific. The following questions should be put — formally, publicly, and with expectation of a written response — to the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Guyana, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Office of the President:

One. What independent feasibility analysis was conducted before Guyana signed the UPI MoU with India? Was there a comparative study of Pix versus UPI in the context of Guyana’s actual trade architecture? If so, publish it.

Two. Was Pix formally considered and rejected? On what grounds?

Three. What is the total value of government contracts, licenses, and approvals awarded to Indian-origin companies in Guyana since 2020? In which sectors? Through what procurement mechanisms?

Four. How did Ekaa HRIM Earth Resources Management obtain its operational licenses for Region 7 quarrying? What due diligence was conducted on its labor practices prior to the current scandal?

Five. Is there a deliberate government policy of preferencing Indian commercial partnerships — in digital infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, energy, education, and mining — above partnerships with geographically proximate nations? If so, what is the stated rationale?

Six. At what point does the facilitation of Indian state and commercial interests in Guyana become a conflict with Guyana’s national interest?

A Final Word

Guyana is at an extraordinary juncture. The oil revenue, the infrastructure build-out, the growing regional profile — these represent a genuine, generational opportunity. But opportunity squandered through ethnic politics, opaque procurement, and misaligned partnerships is not development. It is the old Guyana wearing new clothes.

The citizens of this country — of every ethnicity, every region, every economic station — deserve a government that makes decisions based on data, geography, economic logic, and national interest. Not on who shares a cultural heritage with the party in power. Not on which foreign government sends the most flattering diplomatic delegations.

Brazil is on our border. Brazil moves a billion dollars of trade with us. Brazil built one of the most successful digital payments systems in human history — and is expanding it across the continent. The logical, the rational, the nationally responsible choice was obvious.

That they chose otherwise demands an explanation.And Guyanese citizens — all of them — deserve one.

This editorial reflects the views of the editorial board. The questions posed herein are submitted in the public interest and in the spirit of democratic accountability.